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Book Reviews

these few thousand people were dispersed to over a hundred smalltowns and cities in twenty-five states, with two-thirds of them windingup in Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri. Schiff reportedly investedabout $500,000 of his own money in this endeavor in an attempt toward off immigration restriction by Congress. Within a decade of itsinception, however, he realized that the plan would not work becausethe East European Jews had little desire to go to isolated communitieswith few coreligionists to succor and support them.Marinbach tells us, in overwhelming detail, how the movement gotstarted and how it operated, and one wonders why so much time wasdevoted to a topic that could best be dealt with in a concise essay. Never-theless, the work is deeply researched and adequately written. Little at-tention is paid to the broader context of why Jews were not wanted inthe United States and the futility of Schiff's efforts to ward off immigra-tion restriction. The word "antisemitism" does not appear in the index,although there are several aspects of the study from which the alertreader may infer its impact.The author, unfortunately, was not well served by his editors. Theyshould have insisted not only upon a much broader context in which toplace his study, but they might have advised him, as well, to eliminatethe numerous bloc quotes which have the effect of nudging readers onto the next page.University of Arizona LEONARD DINNERSTEINThe Ethnic Groups of Houston. Edited by Fred R. von der Mehden. (Hou-ston: Rice University Studies, 1985. Pp. vii+ 240. Preface, introduc-tion, photographs, tables, illustrations, appendices. $24.95.)Because of the variety of ethnic groups found there today, Houstoncan certainly be called a cosmopolitan city. Such ethnic diversity is thesubject of The Ethnic Groups of Houston, edited by Fred R. von derMehden. This study, which is the product of a four-year project carriedout by the Houston Center for the Humanities and funded by the Na-tional Endowment for the Humanities, is the work of numerous schol-ars from local institutions. These scholars include Cary D. Wintz, Mar-garita B. Melville, Edward C. M. Chen, Donna Collins, Elaine H. Maas,Theodore G. Gish, Louis J. Marchiafava, Charlotte Peltier, John S.Ambler, Mary Schiflett, and von der Mehden. They were assisted intheir research by advisory committees from each of the ten groups se-lected for this study.Houston has a rich ethnic heritage. Among the earliest groups wereblacks, Jews, Germans, and Swedes. They were joined later in the nine-